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We left Will and Lia’s and caught the ferry to Calais. We drove down the coast to Bayeaux. We found a nice campground nearby in Arramanche. The next day we drove into Bayeaux and saw the Bayeaux tapestry which was massive! It told the story of the battle of hastings and the lead up to it. It was really interesting and it was nearly 1000 years old!!!
We also saw a huge cathedral. In the afternoon we went to Omaha Beach which was where the USA soldiers landed on D-Day 6th June 1944. There was a massive cemetery and a small museum telling you all about it. We also saw more things about the D-Day landings back at Arramanche. Here an artificial floating harbour brought all the way from England was set up for the ships. Parts of it were still there.
After Bayeaux we drove east to Mont St Michel which is a big abbey on top of a huge rock sticking out of the middle of the beach. It has a town built around it on the rock. When the tide comes in it’s an island. Sadly it was foggy and we couldn’t even see the top of it. So we carried on to Amboise. We passed loads of huge fancy chateaus. We camped the night at Amboise on the banks of the Loire river. The next day we drove out of the Loire valley to Loches. We had a look round , it was a walled town built in the 14th century. We carried on into the Dordogne region where we found a camp in a small town called Montignac. It was a nice town and the camp had a pool.
When we were in the Dordogne we went to the Roque St Christophe. It was a huge overhanging cliff which had been cut into and occupied by man for over 50,000 years. In the middle Ages it was turned into a fortress and 1,000 people lived there. The houses were built into the rock and we saw examples of them, we also saw lifts and pulleys for bringing things up into the cave as well as weapons and armour. I really enjoyed looking around it.
In the afternoon we kayaked down a section of the Dordogne river. It was very picturesque and we passed 6 chateaus which was awesome.
The next day we headed south again to a little town called Palairac in the foothills of the Pyranees. We would be staying here for a week. It was a tiny village with only about 30 residents and no shop. Bread was brought most days in a car for people to buy. While we were there we explored the local region, which included going to the local ruined chateau and watching a local game of rugby. We also did some school work. One day we took a trip to Carcasonne which is a big fortified city. We wandered around the walls then went to a museum which was hilarious because we had a guy showing us around and telling us French history but he didn’t speak much English but he was very expressive and kept dressing us up in all sorts of medieval armour and weapons. We had a great time there.
Another trip from Palairac we did was to Le Gorges de l’Ardeche which is north of Nimes. We drove up the gorge, there was massive cliffs on each side. We did another small kayaking trip down the river, which was more exciting than the last trip as there was some fun rapids and we went under the Pont d’Arc which was a huge natural stone archway going across the river. It was amazing!!! We stayed the night in a small town near Nimes. The next day we went and saw the Pont du Gard , which is a huge Roman aquaduct crossing the river. It was built to bring water to Nimes 2000 years ago AMAZING!
On the way back to Palairac we drove into the Camargue. It is a big swamp area at the mouth of the Rhone river which is home to the semi wild Camargue horses and pink flamingoes. We saw some of both they were awesome. They also grow rice there which we saw being harvested.
We left Palairac and we headed for Spain.
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